


Bleed and Fight for You

by dreamlittleyo



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Angst, Canon Era, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutual Pining, Power Imbalance, Protectiveness, Rank Disparity, Sickfic, Unacknowledged Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-14 01:27:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29535432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamlittleyo/pseuds/dreamlittleyo
Summary: In which Alexander predictably fails to take care of himself, and Washington does not approve.
Relationships: Alexander Hamilton/George Washington
Comments: 6
Kudos: 73





	Bleed and Fight for You

**Author's Note:**

> [Prompt: War]
> 
> AT LAST, I'm posting the final piece of this prompt list! Yes, it very much transformed from "multi-fandom" to "all Hamilton, all the time" but y'know what? I'm still calling it a victory. Thanks to everyone who came along for the ride!
> 
> **[MultiFandom Prompt Table of Doom: COMPLETE](https://dreamlittleyo.dreamwidth.org/103669.html) **

"Alexander?"

Hamilton startles at the sound of his name—at Lafayette's voice cutting through the midnight quiet of the empty workroom—and nearly upends his ink bottle over pages that are long since dry. He should turn the foolscap over and begin on the next page, but the words have flown out of reach. He mumbles a curse and sets his quill down. The letter will have to wait.

The break in his concentration isn't Lafayette's fault. Hamilton's mind has been wandering long enough that he's honestly not sure how long he's been ignoring the task before him.

It's an important letter. They are _all_ important letters. Yet at this moment he honestly can't remember who he is writing to, or what words he has already put on the page. Exhaustion has always been a close companion, but tonight he feels it more acutely than ever. His mouth is dry, his stomach empty, his hands shaking hard enough that the usually perfect script of his pen is barely legible.

He should have ceased this endeavor and gone to bed hours ago. He should have turned in when the rest of the general's aides retired for the night. It must be nearly two in the morning, and he's been alone in this room for so long that the fire has burned down to an orange glow of ash in the hearth. The candle on the table before him has burned equally low, and will soon start to gutter. He has accomplished too little tonight.

Belatedly, Hamilton realizes an answer is expected and turns to regard his friend. "What are you doing awake?" 

Lafayette wears his full uniform, though there is no sword at his hip. Even his hair is drawn back in its usual pristine queue of dark curls.

"Bad dreams. I was wandering when I saw your light in the window." Lafayette steps more fully into the workroom. He approaches the fireplace and places a fresh log, then stokes the embers back to flame until they catch and begin to curl the bark. He looks studiously at the flame rather than at Hamilton when he says, "My dear friend, you need rest. You should not be here at this hour."

"I have work to do." Hamilton's own gaze is drawn inexorably to the slowly growing fire. "One night's lost sleep isn't such a steep price."

"Non," Lafayette says softly, uncharacteristic gentleness in the tone. "But you and I both know it has been more than one night. Significantly more, I think. You must take better care of yourself. Dare I even ask if you ate today?"

Hamilton's stomach, traitor that it is, gives an audible growl as though answering the question for him. Even without turning his head he can feel Lafayette peering at him with unvarnished worry. He slouches forward in his seat, turning his eyes pointlessly down onto his scrawled and incomplete letter.

" _Alexander_ ," Lafayette cajoles.

"Supplies are stretched too thin. I wasn't hungry." Fuck. He only needed to offer one of those answers. Offering both makes it obvious one of them is significantly less true than the other, and now he can feel Lafayette's stare burning straight through him.

The silence is unbearable.

"Stop looking at me like that," he snarls without raising his head.

"I am not looking at you."

Now Hamilton risks a glance, and finds that Lafayette is being truthful. He is still watching the fire. But it's obvious from his expression, oddly highlighted and shadowed in the firelight though it is, that he is not happy with the information Alexander has provided.

Without so much as a shiver of change in posture, Lafayette asks, "Why do you do this to yourself?"

Hamilton's face heats with a caught-out surge of shame. He scowls, even though his friend can't actually see his expression. Clenches his hands into fists atop the table in an effort to stop them trembling. It doesn't help. Nothing goddamn helps.

"Because our army is starving, our men desert by the thousands, and the people we are supposedly fighting for don't care one jot about our well-being. Because I don't belong here, I'm nobody compared to the general's other officers. Because if I can't be useful, then I am _nothing_." None of these are truths he can afford to say out loud, and yet he has blurted them like an ill-considered confession. His chest is tight with the weight of these things, and for a moment after he finishes, he cannot breathe.

That Lafayette doesn't answer feels like all the confirmation Hamilton does not want for his wagonload of insecurities.

"Is that really what you think?" a deeper, quieter voice asks.

Hamilton's heart seizes and his head whips toward the still open door. George Washington stands in the frame, no sign of his buff blue coat or sash. He is dressed, but looks somehow incomplete in waistcoat and shirt sleeves. His expression is impossible to read in the deep shadows so far removed from the hearth.

The candle on the table flickers as the flame nears the end of the wick.

" _Sir_ ," Hamilton croaks, horrified at the thought of waking his general from what little sleep he might have been managing.

Washington turns to address Lafayette, who has put his back to the fire in order to acknowledge his general. "Might I have a word alone with my chief of staff?"

"Of course." Lafayette offers an exaggerated bow, and then moves away from the fireplace. He sets a hand on Hamilton's shoulder as he passes, squeezing lightly. A passing gesture of affection that might normally help to settle Hamilton in his skin, but tonight barely registers past the wild pounding of his blood through his veins.

Hamilton scrambles to his feet, but it's not until he hears the front door of headquarters latch heavily shut behind Lafayette's departure that he says, "I'm sorry if I woke you, sir."

"At ease, Colonel." Washington strides into the workroom. "You did not wake me. I couldn't sleep."

"There seems to be a great deal of that going around tonight, Your Excellency." He tries to inject the words with humor—with lightness he does not feel—desperately hoping to deflect whatever painful conversation he has tripped into.

Washington keeps coming toward him, rounding the long table and stopping only once he reaches Hamilton's side. A moment's apparent consideration, and Washington sits on the edge of the table, carefully away from Alexander's quill and ink. Tall as he is, he is able to perch there without hoisting himself up, more of an elegant lean than a proper seat. Washington crosses his arms over his chest and gives Hamilton an assessing look in the firelight.

Hamilton doesn't know what he is supposed to do. Reclaim his abandoned chair? Keep standing at attention despite Washington's admonition to stand down? He compromises by remaining on his feet but letting his rigid posture relax. Wariness pricks along his skin as he forces himself to meet Washington's eyes.

"Sir?" he asks when Washington does not speak.

His general continues to regard him in studious silence for several endless moments, leaving Hamilton no recourse but to wait and keep as still as possible. His usual frenetic energy makes stillness difficult even at the best of times, and now—wrung out and agitated and anxious under this piercing scrutiny—it is nearly impossible. The urge to pace is almost overwhelming, and Hamilton resists only with the greatest exertion of fortitude.

It does not help that Washington has taken up a position so very close. He sits near enough that swaying forward the slightest distance would bring them into contact, and the illusion of intimacy is maddening.

Hamilton has spent the past weeks and months shunning any suggestion of intimacy from his general—a necessary evasion not because he reviles the prospect, but because he craves it with a force that terrifies him.

"Tell me, Colonel," Washington says at last. "When, precisely, did you begin to doubt my judgment?"

Hamilton's eyebrows rise. "I've never doubted your judgment." He has shared in the retroactive questioning of unsuccessful tactics, yes. But as to the all but impossible task of keeping the Continental Army intact and functional, Hamilton recognizes with all his soul that George Washington alone is up to the task.

"Then why do you speak this way about yourself?" Washington counters, tone heavy with disapproval and—Hamilton can't quite credit it—an undercurrent of hurt. "Why do you take so little care for your own health when you know I rely on you completely?"

Hamilton would likely feel pride at such a statement under normal circumstances. But tonight feels different. Tonight he is soul-sick, and hungry, and utterly defeated. There is a hopelessness in his chest that has nothing to do with their unwinnable war, and everything to do with his own dubious status in this changing new society.

His senses blur, and it's difficult to focus on his general's handsome face when Hamilton says, "I'm just a soldier, Your Excellency. And one you deem so unworthy you won't even let me fight. If writing letters is all you will use me for, then _let me do it_." He is desperate to be useful—to be needed—and with Washington continually refusing him the command he has earned, this is all he has.

But instead of conceding this thoroughly reasonable point, Washington wrinkles his brow in unmistakable confusion. "Unworthy?"

Hamilton's face flushes hot and his head spins. He bites hard at his own lower lip to keep from answering, terrified of stumbling across the line between candor and insubordination.

"Alexander, you cannot mean that."

The sound of his name in that rumbling baritone makes Hamilton's chest feel tight, just like always, but for once he can't seem to look away. Washington is staring him down with wide eyes now, and there is a flare of incredulity in them.

Hamilton's eloquence seems to have fled with his strength, and the only answer he can manage is a shaken echo. "You won't let me fight."

"Because I need you here." There is thunder in the low-pitched pronouncement, and it startles Hamilton back a step even as Washington continues, "My god, you think I have you writing letters because I mistrust your skills as a soldier? I wish I had a hundred like you I could afford to put in the field."

Now it's Hamilton's turn to furrow his brow in confusion. "Sir?" He wants to sit. His legs are trembling beneath him now, and he fists his hands at his sides to conceal the fact that they're shaking harder than ever. Shadows encroach on the edges of his vision, and he doubts it is a result of the hearth burning low.

Washington blinks and uncrosses his arms. Grips the edges of the table to either side of where he sits. "I _need you here_ ," he repeats, and there is something desperate in the words this time. "I don't refuse you a command because you're unworthy. I refuse because your mind and talents are indispensable to me. I can no longer fight this war without you. And perhaps I am also a selfish old man."

Hamilton's senses blur and twist but he still asks, "How are you selfish?"

Washington is quiet for a very, _very_ long time before murmuring, "I should not admit this to you. You've made it clear you have no use for my affection, and I've never intended to proffer that which is unwelcome."

Hamilton stares and holds his breath, willing the painful throbbing in his temples to cease or at the very least to _quiet_ , so that he can properly absorb whatever impossible thing his general is about to say.

"The candid truth is this." Washington continues with sober intensity, but also with all the measured caution Hamilton knows so well. "You mean a great deal to me. More than I have any business confessing, now or ever. Even were you _not_ vital to the management of my army and my headquarters, I doubt I could stomach ordering you into danger."

Oh. Oh, suddenly the entire room is spinning, and Hamilton can't tell if it's the feverish whirl of his senses or the burst of feelings in his heart setting the world to motion. It takes him a stunned moment, but at last he opens his mouth to speak.

"You—"

The words evaporate from his tongue in the same instant his legs give out, and vertigo abruptly carries him downward.

The shadows encroaching on his vision are everywhere now, and his ears are ringing, his breath coming shallow and quick. He expects to land hard on the unforgiving floor, prays that at the very least he won't hit his head on the way down. But the moment of impact never comes. Instead, there is a sudden sense of warmth—of safety—and Hamilton struggles to remain conscious.

He blinks in an effort to clear his vision, but everything is still too blurry. It takes him an embarrassingly long moment to figure out that the improbable warmth is his general. Holding him. Keeping him upright by crushing him to Washington's powerful chest.

There is a bleary moment in which he is certain Washington says his name, but Hamilton is too exhausted to respond.

Instead he closes his eyes, having expended his final resources in solving the mystery, and lets unconsciousness take him.


End file.
